Page 11 of Read This Before the Villain falls in Love with You

Matteo nods toward the old woman as she disappears back into the kitchen corridor. "Nobody asks Nonna Lucia for anything. She spent yesterday at the estate in Palermo and flew in before sunrise just to make sure Luca didn't starve us all. You just receive. It's a whole system."

"I tried saying no to Nonna once," Enzo mutters, staring grimly into his espresso. "She made me eat three bowls of gnocchi and clean the entire pantry with a toothbrush. Never again."

I fork a piece of sausage into my mouth. The skin snaps, hot pepper and rosemary hitting my tongue before I even finish chewing. Nonna Lucia watches me from the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed, her silver hair coiled in a tight knot. I pick up a slice of crusty bread and start buttering it. You do not pick a fight with the woman holding the pan, not when twenty men with guns are eating off her plates.

The heavy double doors swing open, and the chatter at the table suddenly drops. Luca walks into the dining room with quiet, measured steps. He pulls out the carved leather chair at the head of the table and sits down, taking a white porcelain cup between his fingers. His dark eyes lock straight onto my face.

Luca Moretti. He wears a charcoal cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, black ink creeping up the skin of his left wrist. Steam rises from his black coffee. His jaw sits loose, his posture relaxed against the carved leather back of his chair, watching my jaw move with every bite of food.

I drop my fork onto the plate with a sharp clatter. "Can I help you with something? Or do you just stare at everyone who eats your eggs?"

He doesn't blink. He just tilts his head, slowly. "You're eating my grandmother's food," he says, his voice flat and low. "That's more than I expected from someone who tried to knock my cousin's teeth out last night."

"Do not flatter yourself. The eggs are good. Your personality is the problem."

"My personality runs this estate," Luca says, his spine flat against the leather chair.

I reach for my toast. "Then it's a miracle the place is still standing."

Matteo coughs violently, spraying espresso across his napkin. Across from him, Enzo snorts into his hands, a sharp bark of laughter cutting through his nose before he can press a hand over his mouth.

"She just insulted you and complimented the eggs in the same sentence," Enzo remarks. "I respect the efficiency ."

"I'm a woman of complex layers," I counter, and go back to my plate like the head of a crime family isn't currently dissecting me over his coffee cup.

I still feel his eyes on me. It is not subtle, and it is not polite. It makes my stomach turn in a way that has nothing to do with the sausage.

"You're doing it again," I point out without looking up. "The staring thing. It's rude. Did nobody teach you that in whatever finishing school produces men like you?"

"I'm making sure you don't choke," Luca clarifies evenly. "Would be a shame to lose you to a sausage after everything my cousin went through to bring you here."

"Your cousin brought me here by mistake, and choking on sausage would still be better than listening to you talk."

"You talk more than any hostage we have ever had," Enzo says, cutting into a piece of ham.

"I am not a hostage, I am an unpaid consultant observing a total operational failure," I tell him.

Sofia makes a small strangled noise into her napkin that might be a laugh she's trying very hard to suppress. Nonna Lucia, refilling my juice without being asked, gives Luca a look I can't quite decode, something between amusement and warning, the kind only a grandmother can deploy.

"She's got spirit," Matteo declares, pointing his fork at me like I'm a museum exhibit. "I like her. Can we keep her?"

"She's not a stray dog, Matteo," Enzo dryly notes.

"She bit me like one."

I point my butter knife at him. "That was self-defense. You assholes snatched me off a public street. If anything, you should be thanking me for not taking a chunk out of your throat."

"Please don't bite anyone else," Sofia chimes in, her voice gentle despite the grin playing on her lips. "Matteo's complaints are loud enough as it is."

"Tell your brother to keep his hands to himself and nobody gets bitten," I reply, taking another bite of toast.

Enzo leans back in his chair, arms crossed, studying me the way you'd study a stray cat that wandered in and started giving orders. "You're not scared at all, are you. Everyone we've ever grabbed cries by breakfast. You're just eating eggs and running your mouth."

The crust snaps loudly under the knife as I cut another piece of bread. "Crying does not fix anything."

Matteo points his butter knife at Enzo. "See? Told you. Cold as ice."

"Shut up, Matteo," Enzo says, tossing a napkin onto the table.